Giggles and Smiles

A couple recent videos of Bryce.

Busy Weekend

We've wrapped up an exciting weekend around here. As mentioned in the previous post, we had a special family outing planned for Friday evening. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on tour up in Merrillville and we surprised Kari with tickets to the event.

Joe, from school, was also there. Kari and Nolan after the show.

For us as parents it was an interesting experience. We didn't quite know what to expect, but were overall pleased with the performance and definitely Kari's behavior. I suppose we got as much amusement out of watching Kari enjoy herself as watching the people around us enthusiastically pay exorbitant mark-ups on marketing items. $7 popcorn with Handy Manny on the box, $10 cotton candy with free Disney hat, $20 flashlights, and $15 programs with free Handy Manny plastic yellow hard hat. It was nothing short of amazing.

We kicked off Saturday morning with swimming lessons. This is Kari's third round of lessons, but first time going in by herself. She was excited about lessons, but even more so when she found out our neighbor, Jake, was also in her class.

Bryce enjoyed seeing Natalie outside of daycare, albeit out of context, during swimming lessons.

In The Kitchen

Grand-mo and Grand-po Haugstad came down for a quick weekend visit in between Grandpo's ski races. We seemed to spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen, which Kari was more than pleased to do. We made sugar cookies.
And last night we made squash ravioli; we even made our own pasta and then ate it tonight. Now, I'm not going to fib, the pasta tasted nothing short of rubber bands, but it was our first shot, and wow, it is way more difficult than you might think! But it was still fun to attempt, and we may even try and redeem ourselves on this project later on down the road.

The finished product!

This Saturday Kari starts her third round of swimming lessons at the Y. This time she's finally old enough to be in actual lessons, sans parent. As much as I love the water, I am going to enjoy watching lessons from the bleachers. We also have a fun surprise outing lined up for Friday evening. In the meantime, I'm staying incredibly busy at work. Between working extra days for recruiting events, evening hours for the annual phone-a-thon and Pharm D interviews, I'm looking forward to the end of this week. More posts to come as things come back to normal.

Why Kari Loves Her Grandparents

Kari spent the weekend at Gran and Beep Beep's again. She loves her sleepovers, and who wouldn't?

Snowball fights

Toboggan rides

Swinging

Feeding the birds

Meanwhile, Kevin, Bryce and I spent some time together.



You can get buried alive if you don't keep up with the laundry monster.

Vancouver's Got Nothin' On West Lafayette

Kari was an alternate for carrying the torch for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
We quickly made this craft just in time for the start of the Opening Ceremonies tonight. Fun, easy and most supplies were found around the house.

Perhaps On Second Thought

we have ourselves a multi-digit sucker.

More Craft Projects

It's been so stinkin' cold outside lately, I've had to heavily rely on internet searches for indoor projects. Barely mention the words "craft project" and Kari is at attention and ready to jump in. Because I can't take credit for these ideas, I'm always happy (and otherwise obligated) to share my sources. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, there's a ton of ideas out there. We selected two so far.
Valentine's cards for Kari's teachers and administrators:








Sweetie Pies:

These reminded me of my good friend Amy's family favorite camping treats, pudgie pies. Kari had taken her shirt off after we finished because she had flour all on her sleeves.

We recycled broken crayons.


This last project turned out really well and was super easy. A little bit of food coloring and some extra space in the freezer (at our house this was the toughest part of the project) made this wintertime sun catcher.

We even liked this project so much, we did it again the next day.

Greetings From Cameron Indoor Stadium